


Dances on a Winter's Eve

by The_Seahorse_Cavalry



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Multi, Pre-Thor (2011)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:57:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Seahorse_Cavalry/pseuds/The_Seahorse_Cavalry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the realm celebrates, Loki finds the deepest reaches of Asgard's palace and Thor finds out his life has gotten a lot more complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thor

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set pre-Thor. Thor/Sif is played with as well as (more ambiguously) Thor/Loki. Many liberties have been taken with Asgardian architecture.

Thor was late. Odin has asked him to redirect a rainstorm in anticipation of the massive crowds that would be pouring into the royal palace of Asgard. He had not asked Thor to drag the stormclouds to a different part of the realm and unleash their lightning on a patch of forest, but Thor felt he ought to complete the job. And Odin had definitely not asked Thor to fly around with Mjolnir until the air began to thin, but Thor was in high spirits after using so much magic to train the clouds to his design. It felt good to fly, and his face became pleasantly cold soaring above the palace.

Only one burned tree and no one got rained on, that was damn well done, Thor thought to himself as he looped around the golden spires. Look, there’s some of them arriving now for the--

The party. The First Eve of Winter. He might have missed some of it, and he was supposed to stand at the high table, at least until everyone had drunk a few cups and he could dance and drink some more with his friends, at a table that had been flipped over many times in merriment or rage. He swung Mjolnir around and dropped, aiming for one of the upper balconies. Someone was standing on the broad semicircular balcony to his right. Thor grinned and swerved in flight. He would know those golden horns anywhere.

He lifted Mjolnir just a little to slow himself as he swooped onto the balcony and directly into the person standing there. There was a violent clang as Thor crashed into his brother and another a moment later as Loki’s helmet banged against the floor.  
“Hello brother!” Thor said.  
“Thor, I know I’ve said this before but I think you actually broke my spine this time.” Loki’s voice was slightly cracked. Probably for show, Thor decided.  
Thor smiled. “Well that’s no good; you’re supposed to be going to a party.”  
“So are you.” Loki dramatically lifted a hand and swiveled his wrist as if checking for broken bones.  
“Oh stop it, you’re almost as indestructible as me,” Thor said.  
“Get off my chest, Thor.”  
“I’m not sitting on your chest it’s more like your--”  
Loki finally sat up and rolled over, dislodging Thor. He straightened his cape and put his helmet back on, the smallest of smiles curling the corner of his mouth. Thor leapt up and summoned Mjolnir into his hand.  
“Well, I think at least one of us is obliged to be on time,” Loki said. “I’ll tell them you’re coming. Don’t take forever or Fandral and Volstagg will be ahead of you by three tankards and who knows what they’ll do without you.”  
“All right, but you should come sit with us, Loki,” Thor said. “I don’t know why you don’t get along with Sif right now but we all want you to celebrate with us.”  
“I’ll see you there, Thor,” Loki said. He suddenly looked tired, and turned to go.  
Thor shrugged and blew some of his hair out of his face. 

He bounded down the steps, tripped, and re-fastened his cape. When he entered the hall from the back, close to the high table, he immediately sensed his mother’s sharp eyes upon him, disapproving beneath her elaborately pinned and curled hair. His mother and father both wore cloths of silver and gold, and were standing with jeweled goblets raised at the center of the table. Odin was talking. Loki, standing to his mother’s left, shifted slightly on his feet, and Odin’s singular eye flicked momentarily to Thor. He continued  
“...and of course it is my greatest pleasure to be sharing this Winter’s Eve with not only my own family, but all of Asgard that I am proud to call my kin….these bonds, of kinship, are the strongest of all.”  
If Thor was supposed to feel embarrassed, he didn’t. 

With a smile and a wave, the crowd parted for him and he was able to sit down beside his father a moment later, just as everyone took their first gulp of sweet mead.   
“Well, Thor, I’m pleased you found your way here.” Odin said, leaning on the carved arm of his great chair. “Your mother I am sure is pleased you don’t appear to have any open wounds, as well.”  
Frigga, drinking, gave Odin an affectionate scowl over her goblet.  
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Mother,” Thor said. “Father, would you like some more bread?”  
“Well, it’s not like anyone will remember you were half a minute late,” Odin said, taking a thick slice of bread. Then, more gently, “I heard from one of the Einherjar that it has been a beautiful day outside.”  
Thor grinned. Loki rolled his eyes, stretched his back, and winced, ever so slightly.

Half an hour later, after clinking goblets with his father a dozen times and showily kissing his mother’s hand, Thor was with Sif and the Warriors Three, pushing a table to the side of the room to make way for dancing. The room seemed to have turned a darker gold; Thor wasn’t sure whether it was the nighttime or the wine, but it seemed to change the essential dimensions of the great hall, filling it with pockets of alluring shadow.

Then there were strings, and drums, and a hundred singers, and Mjolnir was set none too gently on the table as Thor and Volstagg tried to get everyone on their feet. Hogun and Fandral were generally adept dancers, while Thor, Sif, and Volstagg were rather terrible. Loki was excellent, but he had managed to barricade himself with the pushed tables and Thor hadn’t yet pulled him onto the floor. 

Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three started off trying to dance in a circle to the time of the music, but they quickly ended up pulling and dragging each other until they ran aground. Then they would all get up, Thor and Sif would be laughing outrageously, and they’d attempt to spin again until they crashed or fell over. Even Thor’s arms were sore by the fourth attempt. He felt like he was whirling in a cylinder of gold, the long tapered candles all around were no longer pinpoints but zigzagged lines of white and yellow, like the trails of meandering shooting stars.

Then the stars fell as the floor rushed up to meet him again. He slid and took Sif and Hogun with him. Hogun stood up but took several steps backwards and tripped over Fandral. Already laughing, Thor felt his stomach tighten so much he gasped to breathe. His rump was bruised and his hair was a mess and he felt weightless with happiness. Sif was clutching her own stomach, legs splayed ungainly on the floor. Thor looked at her as their laughter finally faded and allowed them both to inhale normally.  
Then “Thor, do you want to dance?” she asked, her voice oddly high.

There was a moment before he realized that she meant just the two of them (the Warriors Three had already picked themselves up and were recruiting more of the younger Asgardians for their crazed whirling), and that was the moment he said  
“Yes, of course.”

Then it became clear, and he felt himself still looking at her shining eyes. It was as if he had swallowed a cupful of ice so fast he hadn’t felt the coldness in his throat but could feel it spread slowly through his belly. It wasn’t that he suddenly very much wanted to dance with Sif, and it wasn’t that he suddenly didn’t--it was a rapid realization of both possibilities. He had always considered Sif one of his dearest friends; she was one of his sworn companions and they had fought beside each other for centuries. She wore armor and rode proud horses and seemed so different from the pretty maidens Thor was often obsessed with and devoted too, even the ones who could wield a sword or were better archers than Thor himself. 

Maybe she’s liked me for years. Maybe I’ll fall in love. Maybe she just wants to dance. He glanced at Loki, crouched in his darkened corner, for a moment. Loki’s eyes were half-lidded and unreadable.   
Then Thor extended his hand, and he and Sif moved to the center of the golden room.


	2. Heimdall

When a man entered Asgard’s second-largest hall, his eyes would follow the coiled design on the nearest columns upwards, where coppery beams reached higher and higher, criss-crossing and casting intricate, fantastic shadows. Then if he stepped forward, the copper beams gave way to a larger vault, one all in gold, whose distant ceiling must have hollowed out the sky. 

Guards normally stationed in the lower palace were filing in and stopping at the threshold of the inner room to gawp at its expanse. Lords and noble warriors, too, dropped their jaws and strained their necks to gaze at this grandeur. Women who worked in the kitchens, draped in their finest cloaks, stood next to ladies of the nobility bedecked in jewels. Heimdall strode through the crowd with his helmet under one arm and his eyes fixed on the long table of stacked goblets at the center of the room. He had seen vastness that made even this room look cramped, and he rather fancied a drink of mead. 

He reached for a big goblet at the top of the pyramid of bronze vessels that had been arranged carefully on the table. Far away in Vanaheim, a yellow bird took to the wing and was caught in the talons of an owl. On Midgard a man in a parched field raised a gun to his head. A child was born in Alfheim and took its first breath of air. Heimdall drew his hand back for a second and blinked, trying to bring the palace to the foreground while the whole world fought to be in view.   
You’ll get your turn, he thought. Hang on, can’t I just have a sip first?

The world actually in front of him was clearer, brighter by a hundred times than the shadowy mess of shapes and fleeting colors that was always pushing at the periphery. It was easier to see the mess in its entirety when you were further from the center of Asgard. Staring into the blackness of space, it was easier to Watch. 

It keeps getting easier. Some things are far too easy to watch.  
There were two apprentice Watchers in the round antechamber before the Bifrost now, allowing Heimdall to attend this glittering celebration. Couples spun around the tables of goblets, capes swirling and boots clacking on the shining floor. Shouts and song rose from all the tables that ringed the room. Heimdall finally raised his glass of mead to his lips. At the edge of his vision, a man was stabbed in Vanaheim and fell forward onto a kitchen table. Heimdall blinked.

Far too easy. Heimdall had seen, during his Watch, too many men die, all the constant grieving and pain of the mortals and, infrequently, the intense outpouring of sorrow when an Asgardian died. The immortals were unsure how to grieve; each death seemed like a bizarre and impossible event, a threat to Asgard’s hold on eternity. Heimdall had felt his share of grief, and more, but his world was no longer shaken when he saw gods fall.   
They think they can comprehend eternity, these Asgardians in their floating halls. Well, that may be. Many have seen the start and end of empires. But they have not known so much of history as I have, who can see every creature’s life and death.

Heimdall finished his mead and went to sit with Odin and Frigga. On his way he passed a red-faced Thor, who was whirling Lady Sif around faster than the tempo of the music; Thor barked a hello. He walked by Loki, who was sitting in a corner scowling over his silver goblet. Then the thick oak tables and the dancers and the seated nobility was pushed behind scenes of Midgard, Nornheim, Svartalfheim….

His father had been a Watcher too. When he was young and could only see what surrounded him--no, that’s not it, everything surrounds us, it’s only a question of distance--when all that Heimdal saw was the world right in front of him, he had often wished his father would come inside more and not spend so much of his time silently staring into the night. As he got older, Heimdall understood more and more how difficult it was to restrict the scope of the Watching, and he understood how everyone seemed smaller and almost impossibly young, even those who had centuries more in age. He began to relish the silence and the emptiness of the sky, a blankness from which to watch the worlds turn.

He found himself wanting that silence now. With a quick few words to Odin and an apology, Heimdall turned and left the hall. It was well after dusk, and the stars were waiting.


	3. Loki

Loki looked up at the beautiful candles around the walls of the great hall. They were so high they were practically indistinct, and as the flames bobbed among the shadows the room seemed to shimmer as though a school of golden fish were circling the ceiling. Loki wished all the candles would fall down and set something on fire. 

He was uncomfortably wedged between two tables with his feet against a pillar and was getting sore from trying to look nonchalant in full ceremonial armor. And part of his back still twinged from being knocked to the ground by Thor, though it hadn’t been nearly as painful as he wanted Thor to believe.   
But more than all this discomfort, his mind was ill at ease. Loki felt extraordinarily out of place and, further, that such feelings were inexcusable. He was keenly aware that Thor, late though he was, was incandescently happy doing nothing but spinning and shouting hellos at everyone he knew. Loki wanted nothing more than to go back to the high table, sit with his parents, and listen to his father’s laugh and his mother’s arch, affectionate mockery of the riotous nobility and the gape-mouthed servants. 

But he knew his parents wanted him to enjoy himself with Thor and his friends, especially since Loki had spent so much of the last few weeks getting up early to go hawking or riding by himself and then claiming he was exhausted and lazing around in the library until sunset. His mother, at least, knew he was purposefully avoiding company. Loki constantly told himself that it was because he wanted to see others strictly on his own terms. Tonight, for example, he wanted people like the Warriors Three to have to tilt their heads to see him at the front of the hall, where he would be regal and elegant in his high backed chair, trailing his long fingers around the rim of a goblet of wine. He did not want them joking around with him as Loki, Thor’s little brother, or trying to get him drunk so he would sing for them or amuse them by turning plates into tortoises and long, sharp knives into snakes. 

Loki could see Thor now, helping Lady Sif up from the floor. Something about the way he took her hand and the way she remained in his shadow as they both stood up made suspicion start to coalesce in Loki’s mind and heat to spread across his face. Then Thor glanced at him with a pleading question in his eyes--as if asking for forgiveness, Loki thought wildly, before that thought was suppressed. Thor, apparently finding nothing in the face Loki was trying to control, turned back to Sif and the two of them walked a few steps and started swaying, slowly, to the music.

Loki abruptly stood up and swung his legs over the table in front of him so he could escape the fortress of chairs and tables he had constructed. He felt dizzy, his arms felt heavy in their gold vambraces, and his fingertips were numb. He had drunk too much to attempt cajoling his parents into conversation, and he didn’t want to accidentally say something stupid to anyone, but he was not nearly drunk enough to interrupt Thor. And anyway, he could think of nothing to say, no objection but his own jealousy. He skirted various dancing groups and ducked beneath a battle-axe someone was holding aloft, making his way across to the opposite end of the hall. He then slipped under the archway and disappeared without being noticed. He was good at that, for all his height and his gold horns. 

Loki walked without direction, trying to figure out if he was jealous of Thor for having everyone’s attention or Sif for having Thor’s attention. As was remarkably common, his brooding meant that he did not see the heavy door in front of him until it touched his nose. He was at the stairway to the dungeons, the treasure rooms, and whatever else lay at the darkest heart of the realm eternal.  
The door was locked, of course, but Loki could make a key.

He had always been curious--all his previous trips beyond this door had been strictly guided by his father--and right now he wanted to be as far from that glowing, overheated hall as possible. Let Thor have his laughter and his cheap love; Loki’s magic could let him in places Thor could never go. He crouched and looked into the keyhole of the black varnished door, then sent tendrils of magic into the keyhole, filling it up. It felt like something solid was being pulled through his veins, all along from his stomach through arm and out from his wrist. When he blinked and looked down, he was holding a silver key in his palm.

Loki unlocked the door, feeling the old varnished wood of the keyhole touching the key as if the key were part of his own hand. He pushed the door inward and started walking down the dark stone steps in front of him. The corridor that contained the stairway was steep and too narrow for three people to walk abreast. There were torches every few feet. Loki heard the door shut behind him. A second later, he screamed. 

The stairs turned into a slide, and the torches guttered. Loki found himself rushing down through the dark, falling just slowly enough to contemplate his own terror. His hair streamed behind him and his feet scrabbled helplessly at the stone slide before and beneath him. The stairway curved slightly, which Loki found out by hitting a wall hard with his left shoulder. He plunged further into the darkness, his shoulder throbbing along to the pounding of his heart. Loki frantically whispered a spell to transport himself back beyond the black door. He felt a sharp, searing pain from nowhere and everywhere--a countercurse. He was still falling. The stairs curved again, and this time Loki hit his head on the right side. Was he still facing downwards? Through all the blackness streaming by him, he cast another spell. His body glowed with green light, but he could only see wild shadows as he slipped further and further.

Loki splashed into a pool of cold, dark water. He slid several feet and rolled over, getting his face wet, before he slammed his hands against the slick stone floor and brought himself to a halt. There was a cool blue light far above him. Sputtering a bit, Loki tried to stand and immediately decided that was a bad idea. He was extremely disoriented from his fall, and still drunk on top of that. Loki sat up, pushed his sopping hair out of his eyes, and took off most of his armor, his cloak, and his soaked boots. He set them in a pile. 

The whole floor was covered with very shallow water; Loki put a hand under it and cast around with his magic, feeling it snaking in several directions. The water deepened to his left and he thought he felt the remnants of some long-buried, waterlogged magic. Loki started crawling away from his pile of clothes and armor, eyes alert for any sign of movement from the corridor ahead. Then he laughed, a long, bodily, drunken laugh that echoed in the hollows. Thor probably thought he was having a wild time upstairs, and he might be in bed with Sif for all Loki knew, but Loki was the one lost in his own palace, crawling drunk and half-clothed across the floor.

I win, brother.


End file.
